Please upgrade to Amazon Linux AMI 2014.09 from earlier versions!
While older versions of the AMI and its packages will continue to be available for launch in Amazon EC2 even as new Amazon Linux AMI versions are released, we encourage users to migrate to the latest version of the AMI and to keep their systems updated. In some cases, customers seeking support for an older version of the Amazon Linux AMI through AWS Support may be asked to move to newer versions as part of the support process.
To upgrade to Amazon Linux AMI 2014.09 from 2011.09 or later, run sudo yum update. When the upgrade is complete, reboot your instance.
Remember that the Amazon Linux AMI repository structure is configured to deliver a continuous flow of updates that allow you to roll from one version of the Amazon Linux AMI to the next. Please consult our lock-on-launch FAQ for a discussion of how you can lock an instance (either a new launch or already running) to a particular version of the Amazon Linux AMI repositories.
Released on January 29, 2015
- We've updated the base AMI to include all bugfix and security updates that have been pushed to our repositories since the 2014.09.1 release. This includes the "ghost" patches.
Released on October 14, 2014
- We've updated the base AMI to include all bugfix and security updates that have been pushed to our repositories since the initial 2014.09 release. This includes the "shellshock" patches.
We introduced GP2-by-default AMIs as part of our 2014.03.2 release, and they are included in our 2014.09 release.
Having spent the past release tracking the 3.10 kernel series, for this release we have moved the kernel to version 3.14.19, which is the most recent long-term stable release kernel.
Additionally, instances running the HVM AMIs will now restart 30 seconds after a kernel panic, instead of hanging indefinitely.
Customers who depend on the previous HVM AMI behavior to remove faulty hosts from their fleet can adjust the kernel.panic setting by creating a new file -- /etc/sysctl.d/99-override.conf with kernel.panic=0 as the contents.
PV AMIs have always restarted on kernel panic.
While Ruby 2.0 remains our default Ruby interpreter, we have added ruby21 packages to this Amazon Linux AMI release.
Also, we have updated all of our versions of Ruby to newer upstream patch levels:
ruby18-1.8.7.374
ruby19-1.9.3.547
ruby20-2.0.0.481
ruby21-2.1.2
While Java 7 is still the default on the AMI, OpenJDK 1.8 is included in the repositories with the java-1.8.0-openjdk package name.
Based on customer requests, we have added tomcat8 to the Amazon Linux AMI repositories.
Also, we have updated all of our versions of Tomcat to the most recent upstream releases:
tomcat6-6.0.41
tomcat7-7.0.55
tomcat8-8.0.12
Numerous customers have asked for PostgreSQL 9.3, and it is now available in our Amazon Linux AMI repositories as a separate package from PostgreSQL 9.2.
PostgreSQL 9.3 is specifically named postgresql93 and the 2014.09 Amazon Linux AMI includes PostgreSQL 9.3.5.
Running yum install postgresql9 or yum install postgresql92 will still install PostgreSQL 9.2.
After a truly spectacular number of customer requests, we introduced Docker in the 2014.03 Amazon Linux AMI. With this release, we continue to track upstream development closely.
Also based on customer requests, this release of the Amazon Linux AMI comes with Nginx 1.6.1.
With the 2014.09 Amazon Linux AMI release, we've moved from Git 1.8 to Git 2.1. Users upgrading from older releases will move directly from the older git to the newer.
We have updated all of our PHP packages to newer upstream versions:
php-5.3.29
php54-5.4.32
php55-5.5.17
In addition to the features above, here are some other new packages added to our repositories, based on customer requests:
clamav-0.98.4
cowsay-3.03
llvm-3.5.0
ncdu-1.10
robotfindskitten-2.7182818.701
shorewall-4.5.4
stress-1.0.4
Lots and lots of perl modules
Many of our packages have been re-synced to their latest upstream version.
Some of the more popular package updates are:
389-ds-base-1.3.2.23
curl-7.38.0
gcc48-4.8.2
glibc-2.17
gnupg-1.4.18
gnupg2-2.0.24
httpd-2.2.29
httpd24-2.4.10
java-1.6.0-openjdk-1.6.0.0-67
java-1.7.0-openjdk-1.7.0.65
java-1.8.0-openjdk-1.8.0.20
jq-1.4
lighttpd-1.4.35
lua-5.1.4
mysql51-5.1.73
mysql55-5.5.39
openssh-6.2p2
openssl-1.0.1i
perl-5.16.3
php-5.3.29
php54-5.4.32
php55-5.5.17
pngcrush-1.7.70
postgresql8-8.4.20
postgresql92-9.2.9
postgresql93-9.3.5
R-3.1.1
rpm-4.11.2
ruby18-1.8.7.374
ruby19-1.9.3.547
ruby20-2.0.0.481
ruby21-2.1.2
spamassassin-3.4.0
subversion-1.8.8
tomcat6-6.0.41
tomcat7-7.0.55
tomcat8-8.0.12
wireshark-1.8.10
We have included updated versions of many AWS command line tools. If there is an additional AWS tool that you would like, please call it out!
aws-cli-1.4.4
python-boto-2.32.1
aws-amitools-ec2-1.5.3
aws-apitools-as-1.0.61.6
aws-apitools-cfn-1.0.12
aws-apitools-ec2-1.7.1.1
aws-apitools-elb-1.0.35.0
aws-apitools-iam-1.5.0
aws-apitools-mon-1.0.20.0
aws-apitools-rds-1.15.001
aws-cfn-bootstrap-1.4
aws-scripts-ses-2014.05.14
We have discontinued support for Python 2.4, GCC 4.6, and GCC 4.7 in this Amazon Linux AMI release.
This compatibility table shows which Amazon Linux AMI flavors are recommended for each EC2 instance type.
The Amazon Linux AMI FAQs is updated with both general and technical topics.
We are planning on deprecating several of our AMI flavors with the 2015.03 release, as follows:
- We will no longer produce new 32-bit Amazon Linux AMIs.
- We will no longer produce new "gpu" AMIs for the CG1 instance type. We recommend that customers migrate to the G2 instance type and the "graphics" AMI.
Please let us know if you have feedback or concerns about any of these plans.
We use the Amazon EC2 Discussion Forum for bug reports, feature requests, and package requests. These forums are monitored by AWS Developer Support as well as the Amazon Linux AMI engineering team.
We are actively hiring Linux Systems Engineer, Linux Software Development Engineer, and Linux Kernel Engineer positions! :-)